Sri Lanka’s LLRC, a hoax – Vanni war victims

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 September 2010, 05:36 GMT]Only fifteen of nearly four hundred persons, most of them women, were allowed to witness before Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) in Mullaiththeevu Government Secretariat Monday while the others were driven away, sources in Mullaiththeevu said. The women had come with the hope of getting information about their husbands, sons and daughters who had disappeared without trace after surrendering themselves to Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in the final days of the war on Vanni. Denied of the opportunity to witness before the Commission and from futile attempts in the past they said they had no faith in the Commission calling it a hoax staged by Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa to deceive them and the world.

During the last three days LLRC recorded the statements of war affected persons in Vanni district first at Ki’linochchi town and later in Ka’ndaava’lai in Ki’linochchi district before conducting its affairs in Mullaiththeevu Monday.

A woman witnessing before the Commission in Ka’ndaava’lai said that she had seen the Liberation Tiger combatants who had surrendered themselves to SLA being taken away in sixteen buses on the final day of the war.

The parents and women in Vanni whose children and husbands had disappeared without trace after surrendering themselves to SLA have been pleading SL government top authorities visiting Vanni to help learn what had happened to the disappeared, without any comforting results.

Meanwhile, the LLRC officials visited Puthumaaththa’lan in Mullaiththeevu district Monday.